Why do I overreact to my spouse and kids because of things from my past?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau explains that when an old hurt is still alive, “you're still reacting to your spouse, to your kids, to your life for something that happened 5, 10, 20 years ago.” The people in front of you are getting a reaction that belongs to another time.
The reason, he teaches, is that the event is not really over in your mind. “It's still happening inside of your head. You're still giving it space.” He calls this being stuck, and he is clear about where the pain is coming from: “What's happened then is not what's hurting you now. What's hurting you is the fact that you never let go.”
The first step out is recognizing that. Shlomo HaMelech teaches there is “a time to forget,” and Rabbi Landau puts it simply: “Your past doesn't hurt you. Your attachment to it does.”
Related concepts: Family · Facing the problem
In A Soul at Peace: Bound to the Past
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
An unreleased past shows up in how we react to spouse, children, and life today.
What may be behind it
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau describes a man who reacts to his wife, his crying child, or tight money from that old place, because inside his memory the event is still alive and breathing.
Deepest human truth
There is a time to forget. The event can't be changed, but the holding on can be released.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Boundaries, Healing, and Emotional Resilience · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz